The Real Studio 54

By Bob Colacello

Published: August 19, 2001

One of the advantages of working for Andy Warhol was that he made up in party invites what he withheld in paychecks. If you hung around the office -- aka the Factory -- late enough, say until 7, he might have asked you to accompany him to anything from a movie premiere or an art opening to Christmas drinks at Jackie O's. Andy's grander hosts sometimes objected to his unannounced entourages, and then his manager, Fred Hughes, would lay down the law. This excerpt from my 1990 memoir, ''Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up,'' is about one of the first swell parties the boss, as we Factory workers called him, took me to.

One night in the summer of 1971, Andy disobeyed Fred's strict order and took me to a party at Joe Eula's. ''Who's Joe Eula?'' I asked him when he told me where we were going. ''You don't know who Joe Eula is, Bob? He's the most important person in town. He knows everybody who's anybody. Anybody who's somebody. He's really up there, Bob. This is Fred's group, Bob. All the really chic people.''

I still didn't know who he was, but Joe Eula pinched me on the behind when Andy introduced us. He lived in a floor-through apartment on West 54th Street off Fifth Avenue. There was a big room in front and a big room in back and a narrow, airless kitchen connecting them, where an old black maid was cooking up a storm, and sweating, and cursing Joe Eula.*

Joe Eula cursed back.

Both salons were painted white and filled with big, white, upholstered sofas, chaises and chairs. There were lots of little tables that looked like orange crates, and probably were, and on top of each one was an exquisite white orchid plant in a plain terra-cotta pot. It was the first time I had seen the decorating look that would go from the height of chic to Bloomingdale's basement in the course of the 70's.

Stuck into the walls with pushpins, and hanging this way and that like works in progress in an artist's studio, were a series of fashion illustrations -- quickly executed, snappily elegant gouaches of tall, thin, exotic-looking girls in flowing capes and scarves over sleekly tailored tunics and slacks as slim as ski pants, everything black or red. I noticed that the girls on the walls looked exactly like the girls on the sofas. And lounging on a chaise in one corner, blowing smoke rings to the ceiling, was a tall, thin, exotic-looking man, dressed entirely in black from his turtleneck to his toes, with the exception of a long, bright red silk scarf, which swirled around his shoulders and down his torso like a very pretty snake.

I stood in the opposite corner alone -- Fred had greeted me with a glare and whisked Andy off to meet someone in the other salon. I felt short, shy and out of place. Then a fat girl in a black sequined muumuu came across the room toward me. It was Pat Ast, the Halston salesgirl Paul [Morrissey] had cast in that year's Factory movie, ''Andy Warhol's Heat.'' ''Hi, honey,'' she said. ''I lovvved the new issue of Interview. C'mon, let me introduce you to Halston.''

Halston was the man blowing smoke rings, and he terrified me. For one thing, Andy always spoke his name in a hushed tone. Though they were about the same age, Halston had ascended into the social stratosphere long before Andy, when he designed hats for Bergdorf Goodman in the 50's and became the favorite of ladies like Bunny Mellon, Babe Paley and Gloria Guinness. In 1961, he did Jackie Kennedy's famous inauguration pillbox; in 1968, he started his own couture house; by 1971, he was on top of New York's fashion pack, the American equivalent of Yves Saint Laurent. And as with Saint Laurent, it was Fred who was chummy and Andy who was in awe. He always said: ''I never know what to say to Halston. What should I talk to him about, Fred?''

''Dresses.''

I didn't know what to say to Halston either. His Olympian grandness was intimidating. It was as if he saw himself as the fashion designer in a Hollywood movie: he was too sophisticated, too brittle, too haughty to be real. Yet, up close, he had a face as wholesome as the cornfields of Iowa, which is where Roy Halston Frowick was born. There was something likable about him, something vulnerable.

Conversation was almost impossible anyway. All the tall, thin exotic girls kept coming and going, cooing and kissing, cracking jokes and whispering gossip, falling to the floor at the foot of his chaise, jumping up to greet one another with unintelligible bursts of English, French and Italian all mixed up. Halston said the same thing to all of them, ''How are ya, darling?'' And Pat Ast introduced me to this dazzling chorus line of international beauties: Marisa Berenson. Berry Berenson. Loulou de la Falaise. Elsa Peretti. Marina Schiano. Anjelica Huston. And then Liza Minnelli dashed in with Desi Arnaz Jr. She screeched ''Hi!'' at Halston, and ''Andy!'' at Andy and ''Eula!'' at the host. And dashed out with Desi Jr. Perhaps because Peter Allen, whom she was in the process of divorcing, was also at the party.

It was quite a group of girls, all in their 20's then and, except for Liza, modeling. They were the girls in the gouaches, which were actually advertisements for Halston and the three other fashion designers there that night, Giorgio Sant'Angelo, Fernando Sanchez and Stephen Burrows. Joe Eula, ''the most important man in town,'' I finally figured out, was a fashion illustrator. This was the chic circle into which Fred Hughes led Andy Warhol -- the tight little clique that we would be part of all through the 70's. This clique -- plus Mick and Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote, Jack Nicholson, Diane and Egon Von Furstenberg, Diana Ross, Calvin Klein, Diana Vreeland, Fran?se and Oscar de la Renta and European branches led by Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino -- formed the new 70's society, in which fashion designers were the stars and arbiters, and the only artist was Andy.